Cherie Priest

I bet you thought I forgot about these updates. I bet you thought I’d given up on my resolution. MAIS NON. The resolution is intact, though I confess that it was looking a bit feeble for a couple of days. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’ve knocked out another whole book over the weekend or anything, but I am — at least — still on the Writing Every Day pony.

Here are the weekend’s stats for the noir fable with warring factions, score-keeping ghosts, supernatural animal testing on an industrial scale, survivors with grudges, a mysterious ex-clergyman who lies exquisitely, and a vampire who wakes up cranky from his 100-year nap:

Project: Awake Into Darkness
New Year’s Resolution Status: Solid.
New Words Written Since Last Report: 4105
Present Total Word Count: 7492 words
Goal: 100,000 words by July 1.





Excerpt duJour: “Beside the bathroom sink she found a tube of cherry red lipstick that cost more than a meal.”

Things Accomplished in Fiction: Marvelous violent opening scene wherein vampires overrun a mom-and-pop grocery store that’s open at all hours. Established recovery/subsequent mania of lone survivor, plus hinted at strange plot being undertaken by a determined little vampire who has been heretofore unrelated to the story.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Caucused for Obama. Cleaned house. Missed a bunch of phone calls, but I now have a bathroom so clean you could eat out of the sink, so I’m not beating myself up too badly over it. Besides, if you know me well enough to have my phone number, you’re probably already aware that I’m terrible about keeping track of (a). the phone itself and (b). any messages that find their way to it. But don’t worry! I always catch up eventually.

Reason for Stopping: End of a good scene. Sunday night, and I’m contemplating making myself some supper.

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 68,254